National News

Veterans die waiting on 'secret VA list': Ex-Doctor

by Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – The Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, has secretly kept around 1,500 sick veterans waiting for health care—and at least 40 of them died waiting, CNN reports. Former Phoenix VA doctor Sam Foote says managers there found a way around the rule that VA hospitals should see patients in 2 to 4 weeks: "They developed the secret waiting list." Hospital staff would take down information on veterans seeking appointments, he says, and move that data to a secret electronic list. Their names only reached the official list when a spot opened up for them—that way, Washington never knew about the horrid delays.